TV nerds: tell me about “public access television”

[Mobbd]

I know about "public access" from Wayne's World, mentions of Bozo the Clown here and there, Jesus and Pals on South Park, and Bob Ross with his happy little trees.

I also know about UK comedy shows like Red Dwarf and Vicar of Dibley somewhat breaking America through the back door of PBS. I also know about PBS-financed documentaries like the American Masters series. And I know about their fundraising events as depicted on Seinfeld that one time.

But I don't really know what "public access television" is, technically.

Was (is?) it a satellite thing, cable thing, or a terrestrial broadcast thing? I believe it was "local" so not National presumably?

Does it still exist in the way it existed in the 90s? Like, can today's Wayne and Garth broadcast a TV show from their basement?

Culturally, it looked (looks?) amazing in a DIY/zine-like way. YouTube before YouTube.

Tell me what you know! Technically and culturally.

[JesusAndYourBush]

I only know of it through a show on Channel 4 called "Manhattan Cable" in 1991 that used to show highlights from public access tv.  Presented by Laurie Pike ("Hellooo!").  It was mad and cheaply made as you'd expect and gave the impression literally anyone could have a show on tv.  Pretty much the only thing I remember from it is "Filthy the dog" which was some guy singing a song with footage of his dog shot on a camcorder. I think we got to see some of RuPaul's earliest tv appearances on the show too.

Full episodes on youtube.
#1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7RqjGFk4us
#2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CykGhQukLcA
#3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EPTh6avHCE
#4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CdDpQnpOx8
#5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JYLIJ6xWL8
#6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx4vxGg7oQk
#? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e8mf_sCirQ

[Ferris]

It's complicated and a bit of a hodge podge of rules that were broadly gutted by the Reagan regime in the mid '80s so public access tv doesn't really exist any more to the same degree. I'm also not an expert.

Local/regional tv stations of a certain size get broadcasting licenses and funding from municipal/state governments through arts grants etc but only if they make facilities and broadcast time available as "public access" which means anyone off the street can book the time and do what they like with it (within reason).

Stations usually put this stuff out at 4am when no one is watching anyway, or set up a separate public access spin-off channel which they regard as a loss-leader to continue their licensing agreements and accessing government grants for their commercial channels. They'll also run the public access stuff as bare-bones as they can to divert funds elsewhere so people doing PA shows will need to provide their own clothes, props, occasionally camera operators etc which gives it a weird samizdat, punk vibe (especially as compared to the vibrant coiffed telly usually available on US channels). The Adam and Joe show is the only UK equivalent I can think of that has a similar aesthetic.

(The idea of these public access licensing/funding programs is to broaden access or encourage more engagement in local media or whatever the fuck. The focus is in a specific region or community though, nothing is widely broadcast so you get cult stuff that maybe gets picked up by other channels but it's massively unlikely you'd get commissioned by PA vs traditional method of pitching to networks or having an uncle who works there etc. It's a bit like trying to get a record deal by busking. That's yer Wayne's World anywag - they made it! Though it's America so what little public access I've watched - and I seek it out whenever I can - is religious fruitcakes or culty weirdos.)

PBS is a nationwide broadcaster funded by the federal government, BBC style, but because it's the US the budget has been slashed again and again for political/cultural reasons. This means the money it gets from the gov only covers about half (?) its budget so it shows ads, runs funding drives to keep the lights on, has to rely on buying in a lot of outside content rather than make its own... etc.

It still exists but it has very little worth watching on it unless you want to see season 4 of Escape to the Country (UK) or reruns of Julia Child.

[Famous Mortimer]

Here's a nice example from local (to me), "World Wide Magazine":

Ran from the 80s to 2001, and every year or so, a bar or micro-cinema will remember it existed and run a night of old episodes, which will sell out very quickly. A segment from it inspired a local punk band to make the world's most localised meme, including this looping of the "famous" interview for ten hours:

There was a pretty long-running music show, which had bands coming into the studio to record a few songs, which I assume every city had at least one of. I'd suggest just looking on Youtube for "(CITY) public access" to see a flavour of what was on offer.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

I like this one. Hear the good Reverend's teachings. Oh, NSFW. He gets very passionate about things.

[Dex Sawash]

I recall 80s 90s, my local cable tv provider had a channel you could basically broadcast whatever shit you made on a vhs tape and handed to them. Absolutely dire. Might be a garage band or some fucker showing/talking about his arrowhead collection he'd shagged up in new plowed fields. They'd show a live bad/inaudible feed of city/county council and zoning meetings too.

In exchange for monopoly access to provide cable to an area, they had to show some community give back.

[Theoretical Dentist]

I also don't know much beyond what I've picked up from references in American films and TV, and Ferris has already covered what it is better than I could, but a few other points and thoughts on UK equivalents:

In case it's not clear from other comments, public access TV and PBS are different things. PBS is professionally-made TV, somewhat like commercial networks (in the US network sense, meaning it's a collection of independent local affiliate stations rather than a single channel broadcast nationwide) but with a public service remit influencing their choice of programmes, and generally run as non-profit organisations and funded by grants and donations instead of (or as well as) adverts, although maybe some of the local affiliates are more commercial, I'm not sure.

Public access TV is literally a way for the public to get access to TV broadcasting, so it's generally made by amateurs. But it's not all unhinged rants like you get on YouTube (although I think there is some of that) – there are some long-running series with probably quite good production values. Wikipedia has a list of public access TV programmes and a lot of them are notable enough to have their own articles. (Wikipedia's main article on public access TV has a lot of general information but you'd probably guessed that already).

For a UK equivalent, maybe Video Nation came close to some of the stuff on US public access TV. I must have seen some when it was on but I don't remember much about the content, but you can get an idea of what was shown from the archived archive page although the videos don't play any more. I think Video Nation had more top-down organisation than US public access TV – participants were given cameras and training by the BBC, and I think people are/were mostly left to their own devices to make public access TV. Video Nation also nominally had more narrowly-defined subject matter since it was meant to be video diaries, but people often made them about their interests rather than strictly sticking to the diary format so the end result was probably quite similar.

Also vaguely similar in the UK, some of the programming on local TV channels (the very local Freeview channels covering individual towns and cities, not ITV or BBC regions) seems quite similar in ethos to some of the stuff on US public access TV, partiuclarly the more polished series. Looking at the programmes on my local channel, some of them are probably commissioned by the channel, but others feel like the kind of thing made because someone wanted to make it rather than because a broadcaster identified a need for it, which is closer to the spirit of public access TV.

[Theoretical Dentist]

PBS is a nationwide broadcaster funded by the federal government, BBC style, but because it's the US the budget has been slashed again and again for political/cultural reasons. This means the money it gets from the gov only covers about half (?) its budget so it shows ads, runs funding drives to keep the lights on, has to rely on buying in a lot of outside content rather than make its own... etc.

It still exists but it has very little worth watching on it unless you want to see season 4 of Escape to the Country (UK) or reruns of Julia Child.

No doubt it's true that the amount of new PBS programming has declined, but I think PBS is still involved in quite a lot of co-productions with foreign broadcasters like the BBC, so some of the 'imported' programmes are partly funded by PBS. Often (always?) it's through PBS affiliates rather than the network as a whole – the Boston affiliate WGBH seems to be particularly active. From what I've noticed (from logos in credits) it's mostly documentaries and prestige dramas (the latter often under PBS/WGBH's Masterpiece brand) but maybe it also happens for other types of programmes I watch less.

[Jim_MacLaine]

I had a major crush on Laurie Pike. I wonder what happened to her.

Wasn't Glenn O'Brien's TV Party quite famous/infamous in NYC?

Famous enough for a documentary anyway.

[PlanktonSideburns]

I'm not a nerd, but everyone should watch the bj rubin show

[Ferris]

@PlanktonSideburns what was the mad bloke's name who made the show about making the show and casting everyone in it etc? Was that public access or was he a bit further up the telly food chain?

[PlanktonSideburns]

@PlanktonSideburns what was the mad bloke's name who made the show about making the show and casting everyone in it etc? Was that public access or was he a bit further up the telly food chain?

some sort of newyork tv channel, so maybe counts as public access - Caveh Zahedi - that show has since finally come to its conclusion - and what a conclusion it was!

no bj rubin is like jules holland but for DIY punk and experimental groups, - you get local bands, 'characters' with casio keyboards and berklee jazz twats rubbing shoulders, -  theyre on some public access thing somewhere in america, i think new york again? i think the guy works for the UN when hes not doing this.

anyway, its amazing, watch it all

[Ferris]

Must catch up on that

[PlanktonSideburns]

Must catch up on that

his podcast where he tells every one of his anecdotes for a year is sublime also. each one is about 10-15 mins long so perfect for a WHTPAMcD's listener such as yourself

[JesusAndYourBush]

When Dr Who was cancelled after Colin Baker's 1st season a Canadian public access channel regenerated him into a female Doctor. I used to have 3 of the 4 stories on VHS. Not got it any more but looks like they're on youtube anyway. It was fairly well made for an amateur effort. Shot on film too!

[thr0b]

When Dr Who was cancelled after Colin Baker's 1st season a Canadian public access channel regenerated him into a female Doctor. I used to have 3 of the 4 stories on VHS. Not got it any more but looks like they're on youtube anyway. It was fairly well made for an amateur effort. Shot on film too!

Crikey. There's a rabbit hole you should drop into the Who threads.

[convulsivespace]

I know about "public access" from Wayne's World, mentions of Bozo the Clown here and there, Jesus and Pals on South Park, and Bob Ross with his happy little trees.

I also know about UK comedy shows like Red Dwarf and Vicar of Dibley somewhat breaking America through the back door of PBS. I also know about PBS-financed documentaries like the American Masters series. And I know about their fundraising events as depicted on Seinfeld that one time.

But I don't really know what "public access television" is, technically.

Was (is?) it a satellite thing, cable thing, or a terrestrial broadcast thing? I believe it was "local" so not National presumably?

Does it still exist in the way it existed in the 90s? Like, can today's Wayne and Garth broadcast a TV show from their basement?

Culturally, it looked (looks?) amazing in a DIY/zine-like way. YouTube before YouTube.

Tell me what you know! Technically and culturally.

Already covered in the thread I think, but "public access" and "public broadcasting" are two completely different things in the US. PBS and its many local affiliates are just lower-budget analogues to the BBC. They produce some original programming, like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood or Bob Ross's Joy of Painting, and they also license a lot of BBC shows and other foreign shows because it's cheaper than creating original content. The classic Bozo the Clown show was produced by WGN, which is a local for-profit network out of Chicago rather than a PBS affiliate.

Public-access television, on the other hand, is a regulatory creation meant to grant the public direct access to cable networks as quasi public utilities. Because the barrier to entry is so low, it historically attracted a lot of weird low-budget broadcasters. Lots of talk shows and other programs that doesn't require anything other than showing up at the studio. It does still exist, at least in major cities. The Chris Gethard Show is a good example from a few years ago, though it later got picked up by a cable network.

[steveh]

When the UK introduced modern cable TV in the eighties, the legislation required the companies to all have a local community channel with the expectation of some public access. Most just stuck on a teletext loop with local information that they only rarely updated but sometimes did have occasional real programmes. My local cable co, Encom in East London, once a year would have a week of shows, I assume just to satisfy the regulator. I have a vague memory of one of these being a drama some local college had done featuring Paul Ross.

There were also the attempts at very local TV in the seventies on the very early cable networks: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23906703.

[George White]

Already covered in the thread I think, but "public access" and "public broadcasting" are two completely different things in the US. PBS and its many local affiliates are just lower-budget analogues to the BBC. They produce some original programming, like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood or Bob Ross's Joy of Painting, and they also license a lot of BBC shows and other foreign shows because it's cheaper than creating original content. The classic Bozo the Clown show was produced by WGN, which is a local for-profit network out of Chicago rather than a PBS affiliate.

Public-access television, on the other hand, is a regulatory creation meant to grant the public direct access to cable networks as quasi public utilities. Because the barrier to entry is so low, it historically attracted a lot of weird low-budget broadcasters. Lots of talk shows and other programs that doesn't require anything other than showing up at the studio. It does still exist, at least in major cities. The Chris Gethard Show is a good example from a few years ago, though it later got picked up by a cable network.

PBS also had major strands like American Playhouse, which helped a lot of independent filmmakers over the years, kind of like an American Film4 (in fact, did quite a few coproductions with C4 like Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, Concealed Enemies, the Lawrenceville Stories and 3 Sovereigns for Sarah and Tales of the City), and produced the likes of Longtime Companion, several of Hal Hartley's films, Testament (1983), James Ivory's the Europeans, El Norte, Stand and Deliver, Joyce Chopra's Smooth Talk (now on Criterion),  Native Son, My American Cousin, Errol Morris' the Thin Blue Line and Bloodhounds of Broadway.

They also did a lot of videotaped US drama, like Hollywood Television Theatre, which had all sorts of major names in it, from Shatner to Gene Wilder.
 

[mippy]

I like this one. Hear the good Reverend's teachings. Oh, NSFW. He gets very passionate about things.

"You fuckin' nincom-fuckin-poop" is beautiful.

Tampa Public Access has a lot of stuff on YT, including this rather strident cover

[dissolute ocelot]

Public Access seemed strongly associated with punk and other underground music scenes. CBGBs, the legendary New York venue, apparently had several shows on local public access; I found this but a lot doesn't seem to have been recorded or put online.

Here's the original incarnation of the Beastie Boys on the Scott and Gary show in 1984

There's also a lot of Youtube footage of the more terrible stuff like this from 1995

Or this compilation

Facts: PBS ran from the 70s, but it replaced National Educational Television which broadcast similar stuff but was owned by a charity set up by Henry Ford (it showed Mr Rogers before PBS). Lyndon Johnson's administration established funding for public TV and radio in the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 but it took a while to settle into the current system. National Public Radio is the radio equivalent of PBS, and also seems to do a lot of good, worthy stuff, like a less pompous Radio 4. You can listen to them on npr.org.

One of the key events in the establishment of PBS was the 1969 congressional hearings, notably Fred Rogers' testimony, which you can see in the documentary Won't You Be My Neighbour or here:

[Famous Mortimer]

David Liebe Hart and the other people Tim & Eric exploited discovered are probably how a lot of non-Americans discovered the colourful personalities on public access.

I had a major crush on Laurie Pike. I wonder what happened to her.

Me too, and when I looked her up a few years ago she was writing for a magazine in...Cincinatti? (I notice she has Twitter and Instagram accounts, but both sites are having problems for me at the mo).

I hesitate to call it my "favourite", but I have fond memories of the early internet and Gorgeous George. Host of a Richmond, VA-based talk show with a heavy call-in element, he was discovered by 4chan, Something Awful or Encyclopedia Dramatica, one of those sites. George was / is (he's still going, as of a year ago) a bit of a homophobe, and a lot of a misogynist, so the forum weirdoes felt like they had carte blanche to call in with things as simple as "you need to bathe", or asking him an inane question then quickly following up with "you're a fat pig", or doing the "you're 6'2"? I didn't know they stacked shit that high" bit. There were loads of compilation videos around in the olden days, and to be fair to him it never seemed to faze him one bit. His return insults were not great, but he fought.

Obviously, his treatment is an early example of the toilet that the internet has become, but if you want a trip down public access memory lane, here you go.

[Catalogue Trousers]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FILTHY THE DOG
HAPPY BIRTHDAY FILTHY THE DOG
HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY
BIRTHDAY FILTHY THE DOG

[Catalogue Trousers]

[Sebastian Cobb]

Also vaguely similar in the UK, some of the programming on local TV channels (the very local Freeview channels covering individual towns and cities, not ITV or BBC regions) seems quite similar in ethos to some of the stuff on US public access TV, partiuclarly the more polished series. Looking at the programmes on my local channel, some of them are probably commissioned by the channel, but others feel like the kind of thing made because someone wanted to make it rather than because a broadcaster identified a need for it, which is closer to the spirit of public access TV.

STV applied for some of these local licenses, spawning STV Glasgow and STV Edinburgh, then they acquired the Aberdeen (and possibly some other) licences and folded it all into STV2. It had an operating budget of about a million quid, which is fuck all for a TV station. They figured they didn't actually have to do much local programming to meet the remit, so only made some local news shows (which featured novel for the time cut-price outside broadcasts using small crews, dslr's and sending the video over mobile networks rather than satellite), the rest of the day they just played old films and archive programming to make a quick buck on ad money.

It got shitcanned by the new CEO who saw it as a waste of money but what they learned from doing the news on the cheap fed into a round of budget cuts in the news departments even if they got slightly better equipment.

City TV took over the licences.

[Sebastian Cobb]

When the UK introduced modern cable TV in the eighties, the legislation required the companies to all have a local community channel with the expectation of some public access. Most just stuck on a teletext loop with local information that they only rarely updated but sometimes did have occasional real programmes. My local cable co, Encom in East London, once a year would have a week of shows, I assume just to satisfy the regulator. I have a vague memory of one of these being a drama some local college had done featuring Paul Ross.

There were also the attempts at very local TV in the seventies on the very early cable networks: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23906703.

I remember being wowed when going round cable owning friends in the early 90's where one of the channels was a mosaic of all the channels at once. It wasn't all at once, the thing just cycled round each channel for a few seconds before moving to a freeze frame.

[Theoretical Dentist]

STV applied for some of these local licenses, spawning STV Glasgow and STV Edinburgh, then they acquired the Aberdeen (and possibly some other) licences and folded it all into STV2.

Yeah, there were a few groups that were awarded multiple local licenses in the original round of bidding in 2012, and there's been more consolidation since, to the point that in the current list of licenses there are only a handful that aren't held by one of the two big groups, That's TV or Local TV Ltd (which calls its channels TalkBirmingham, TalkBristol, etc). I think these groups share a lot of programming with not much local stuff.

My local channel, Latest TV in Brighton, is one of the few independent ones (it's a local media group that also does print and online stuff, I don't know if it's owned by a larger group but at least the brand is only used locally). It's made quite a lot of local shows over the years but still I think most of the schedule is non-local stuff like old films.

[Mobbd]

Already covered in the thread I think, but "public access" and "public broadcasting" are two completely different things in the US. PBS and its many local affiliates are just lower-budget analogues to the BBC. They produce some original programming, like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood or Bob Ross's Joy of Painting, and they also license a lot of BBC shows and other foreign shows because it's cheaper than creating original content. The classic Bozo the Clown show was produced by WGN, which is a local for-profit network out of Chicago rather than a PBS affiliate.

Public-access television, on the other hand, is a regulatory creation meant to grant the public direct access to cable networks as quasi public utilities. Because the barrier to entry is so low, it historically attracted a lot of weird low-budget broadcasters. Lots of talk shows and other programs that doesn't require anything other than showing up at the studio. It does still exist, at least in major cities. The Chris Gethard Show is a good example from a few years ago, though it later got picked up by a cable network.

That makes a lot of sense and I had not understood the distinction until now. Thanks for that.

[buzby]

I had a major crush on Laurie Pike. I wonder what happened to her.

Me too, and when I looked her up a few years ago she was writing for a magazine in...Cincinatti? (I notice she has Twitter and Instagram accounts, but both sites are having problems for me at the mo).

She is now a freelance newspaper/magazine writer based in Cincinnati, and President of Stateside Red LLC, who manage residential rental properties in the city (she buys properties and renovates them herself to rent, so in effect she's a buy-to-let landlord). She was also involved in the management and PR of 'The Village! A Disco Daydream', a stage show written by the comedian Nora Burns which was resident in Dixon Place theatre in New York.

[boki]

Thanks for those links, @JesusAndYourBush - used to watch Manhattan Cable fairly regularly, but don't remember too much, so I'll have to give 'em a skeg.

A few years ago, the WWE made a series of shorts called Southpaw Regional Wrestling which I felt not only served as a nice affectionate parody of 80s territorial 'rasslin', but also nailed that feel of ultra-low-budget TV of the time pretty well.

And, of course, there's Weird Al's film UHF - would that have been based on public access or might it have aimed a rung or two higher?